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INJ
'Unless I Thrust My Hand Into His Side'
St John 20:19-31
Matins
Quasimodogeniti, First Sunday After Easter
April 23rd, 2006
Christ is risen, He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
The Gospel text before us is about doubt turned to certainty, about fear being cast off by faith, with St Thomas and also with us.
St Thomas is obstinate. He was out of the room when Jesus appear to the ten disciples on the evening of His resurrection. On that night Jesus came to them through the locked door, into their midst, speaking “Peace” and breathing on them, giving them the Holy Spirit, and sending them even as He had been sent by the Father, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” [St John 20:23]
But Thomas was not there. When the others reported, “We have seen the Lord,” Thomas is obstinate. “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” [20:25]
“I will not believe.” But Thomas' unbelief is not malicious, it is rather weakness and fear and doubt. Thomas had seen the Lord's death, the nails and the spear. He saw the warmth and wetness of the Lord's blood, He knew the limpness of Jesus' corpse, Thomas knew, oh, how he knew the crushing reality of his Jesus' death. And he felt the depth of despair, the sting of shattered hopes, of everything that he had hoped and dreamed and learned and trusted in was ripped apart.
Thomas knew that the Lord's death was real, and He wanted to know, he must know, that His life was real as well. Thomas was not about to believe in a ghost or a phantom or a shadow. He wanted to see and touch the scars of the cross.
And so it is, for eight days, Thomas' desire mixing with despair. “Unless I see His hands.” Thomas' faith fighting against fear. “Unless I put my finger into the print of the nails.” Eight days, questions and doubts, until, a week later, the Sunday after Easter, until today, “Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, 'Peace to you!' Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.'” [20: 26,27] “Thomas,” Jesus is saying, “Look here! My life is as real as My death!”
Thomas' eyes, which had been filled with the pain and suffering and fear of Jesus' death are now filled with the joy and peace of His life, His eternal life. Thomas is quick to believe, making the wonderful confession of faith, “My Lord and my God!” [20:28]
This is a truly beautiful text, written for us and for our comfort. For the example of St Thomas, and Jesus' patience with him, shows us Jesus' heart, how He deals patiently with us and desires to give us the comfort of His resurrection and His life.
We too are often assailed with doubt. The devil tempts us to unbelief and despair. We deny Christ, by word or by deed. We are, like Thomas, weak and often full of questions and fear. Our reason and our sinful flesh cannot take the resurrection, cannot believe it.
But Jesus is patient with us, and long-suffering, and He desires that we too would trust in Him and that we would confess with Thomas, “My Lord and My God.” See how He does everything for Thomas, how He comes to him and offers Thomas His hands and His side, see how free Jesus is with everything that is His. So it is with us, Jesus does everything that we might believe and know that He is our Lord and our God, that He has died for us and our forgiveness and salvation, and now lives for us to intercede for us and help us.
He held nothing back but gave everything for us, even His life unto death on the cross, all for us. And He still holds nothing back. He has seen to it that we would be certain and sure and that we would know and rejoice that He is risen form the dead.
Well what has Jesus done and what does He do that we might be sure? Does He come to us that we might touch His hands and read His scars like braille? No, this is not how it is with us, as Jesus says to Thomas, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” [20:29] Jesus has a more blessed way for us, for those who have not seen, a more blessed way for us to be certain and sure that He lives, and that way is this: the apostolic Word, the Scriptures, the preaching of the Gospel.
We see this twice in the Gospel text before us. First, when Jesus appears to the ten disciples on Easter evening He says, “As the Father sent Me, so I send you.” He then breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgiven the sins of any, they are forgiven them, and if you retain the sins of any they are retained.” [20:22,23] This is amazing, that Jesus send out His disciples even as He was sent. How was Jesus sent, and why? We read that in the prophet Isaiah [61:1-3], “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor.” And this setting free and proclaiming liberty and bringing good news the Lord Jesus has handed over to the Apostles and to the Church. So it is, that whenever we speak the Gospel to each other, whenever we proclaim the forgiveness of sins, whenever I, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, announce the grace of God unto you, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ forgive you all your sins, whenever all of this happens, the Church is doing what the Lord Jesus has set her to do, and by this preaching and speaking and proclaiming of the Gospel Jesus is doing exactly what He did for doubting and then believing Thomas: comforting Him with the sureness of the forgiveness of all of his sins.
We see this generous comforting of Jesus a second time in the text. In the last two verses that we read, “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” [20:30,31] St John is here telling us why he wrote down His Gospel, for what purpose: that we might believe, and believing, have life in Jesus' name.
Jesus appeared to the disciples, and they looked upon Him and touched Him and handled Him in order that they might be the witnesses throughout the world of these wonderful and gracious acts of God, in order that the word of the Gospel and the forgiveness of sins would be published throughout the world. [See 1 John 1:1-3] And indeed we have this treasure, the words of the apostles and prophets, the very Word of God, here in the Holy Scriptures. This is truly a magnificent treasure.
Jesus does not bid us to look upon His wounds. He does not command us, like Thomas, to thrust our hand into His side. We will not, until He calls us to Himself, touch His scars. Instead, He directs our ears to His word, to the preaching of the Gospel, to the Absolution, the forgiveness of sins, to water and His body and blood connected to the promise, to preaching and the comforting conversation with our brothers and sisters in Christ, to these Jesus points as He says, “Be not doubting, but believe.”
All this He does for us, His church and dear lambs. He gives us the Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. That not seeing, but hearing, we would believe, and be blessed, that all of our doubt and fear would be conquered by the confidence of faith, and that we would confess with Thomas 'My Lord and My God'; that we would have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, the fellowship that comes from the forgiveness of all of our sins, the fellowship that gives life and salvation.
Dear Saints,
It is the holy will and desire of the Lord Jesus that we “Be not unbelieving, but believing.”
May God grant that it would be so, that we would, by faith, have this fellowship with the dear Lord Jesus, fellowship with His death and in His resurrection and life, all by these words: “Your sins are forgiven.” Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church
Aurora, CO